Fairfax County General :
Fairfax Underground
Welcome to Fairfax Underground, a project site designed to improve communication among residents of Fairfax County, VA. Feel free to post anything Northern Virginia residents would find interesting.

1. Speed limits are just suggestions
2. You take a major highway to school (95, 66,28, etc)
3. You constantly complain about there being nothing to do, even though you are right next to DC
4. You have at least 2 friends who have no idea what their parents do because its "top secret" government work
5. 50% of your senior class plans on going either to Mason, JMU, Tech or UVA
6. When people ask where you're from, you tell them DC because its easier to explain
7. You've never told someone you're from Virginia without putting "northern" in front of it
8. When you and your friends get bored you all whip out your cell phones and start playing with them
9. Its not actually tailgating unless your bumper is touching the car in front of you.
10. A yellow light means at least 5 more cars can get through.
11. A red light means 2 more can.
12. It takes you 30 minutes to drive 10 miles
13. Your local news is national news
14. If you hear the word "sniper" one more time you're going to slap someone
15. You actually know what the black boxes at stoplights are for
16. Even if your high school is only a year old, its already overcrowded
17. You have over 500 students in your graduating class
18. Despite the fact that Virginia fought for the south in the Civil War, you are NOT, under ANY circumstances, a "southerner"
19. You are friends with people from at least 2 other high schools
20. You know at least 2 people who drive a mercedes, BMW, Lexus, etc.
21. The cars in the student parking lot are woth 3x those in the teacher parking lot.
22. You are amused by visiting relatives who are actually excited to see Washington DC
23. You are amazed when you go out of town and the people at McDonalds speak english
24. You can cross 4 lanes of traffic in under 30 seconds
25. There are at least 3 malls within 20 minutes of your house
26. There are at least 6 Starbucks within 20 minutes of your house
27. You or someone in your family has a Smart Tag
28. Homework/Extra credit for a class has been to visit a museum in DC
29. When traveling, you have your choice of 3 airports
30. You don't actually like the Redskins/Wizards (except when Jordan was playing)
31. An inch of snow and you miss 3 days of school
32. All the potholes just add a little excitement to your driving experience
33. Stop signs mean slow down a little, but only if you feel like it
34. A rich white kid driving a BMW while blasting rap music is a common occurance
35. You call things "ghetto" even though in most of the rest of the country it'd be high class
36. You or most of your friends have a 3 car garage
37. You don't actually keep your cars in it.
38. When you were driving on the beltway at 2:13am on a Tuesday there was still traffic
39. Crown Victoria = undercover cop
40. A slow driver is someone who isn't going at least 10mph over the speed limit
41. You understand the meaning of "If you don't get it, you don't get it"
42. Subway is a fast food place. The transportation system is known as Metro, and only Metro
43. You've taken a wrong turn somewhere late at night and ended up in a bad part of DC(ex. anacostia)
44. Most of Loudoun County is the "middle of nowhere"
45. They just tore down the old farm house across the street and put 12 new houses in its place
46. The word Hfstival actually means something to you
47. Someone has honked at you because you didn't peal out the second the light turned green.
48. You've honked at someone because they didn't peal out the second the light turned green.
49. Rush hour lasts all day
50. For the cost of your house, you could own a small town in Iowa
51. Helicopters and airplanes flying above your neighborhood is a normal occurance.
52. 9:30 isnt just a time, its a place.
* Added by other people *
53. If you stay on the same road long enough, it will eventually have 3 new names.
54. You have to dial the area code to call your neighbor
55. You live 5 minutes from at least 2 high schools, but you go to one thats 30 minutes away.
56. You know at least 3 alternate routes to avoid sitting at a stop light.
57. You can't pull up to a 7-11 without seeing at least one cop, and usually there's another cop sitting not too far away.
58. You refer to distances in minutes, not miles.
59. When you put on your turn signal to change lanes, the people next to you speed up.
60. Talking on metro in the morning is prohibited

61. Your house has doubled in value in the last 5 years.
62. You couldn't afford to buy they house in which you live.
63. You feel vauguely .com-ish about the NOVA real estate market.
64. A mixing bowl is something through which you drive.
65. You leave the house at 0600 so that the commute is reasonable.
66. You've had a police cruiser blow by you at 75 mph, lights extinguished.
67. You're thinking of setting up stables at both your home and office park, so that you can commute to work more quickly on horseback. A fine blend of retro and conspicuous consumption, no? .
68. You wonder what the required crater dimensions are on the Fairfax County Parkway before they trot their faulty ___es out to fix the asphalt.

69.a When you see houses that are ten feet from one of the most heavily traveled roads in the area during rush hour, thereby preventing any reasonable attempt to widen the road to two lanes and end an impassable bottleneck.

/whatever happened to "imminent domain", they were totally willing to cut hundreds of houses out of the way for the parkway when it was built, I guess that must have rubbed a few heads wrong.

72. When you do something blatantly and unquestionably illegal with a group of friends that consists of 1) the son of a DEA agent, 2) the son of the chief justice of the Fairfax County General District Court, 3) the son of an FBI agent, 4) the son of a secret service agent, and 5) an aide to George HW Bush, and the police don't know how to handle the situation, so they just back off quietly and go away. I mean, they don't say anything, but just get back in their cars and drive away. All six cops. Practically squeal wheels to get away.

73. When you get harrassed by the police for sleeping in your car, at 17, with beer cans all over your car, in some non-descript dead end street, and you tell them that you are waiting to pick up so-and-so to go to Kings Dominion, who happens to be the son of the chief justice of the general district court, and the police say, "oh, well, sorry to bother you, have a nice morning" and drive away.

76. You narrowly miss hitting someone in the left lane who has decided they need to turn right RIGHT NOW.

77. You've sat behind someone who believes it is their god-given duty to drive in the left lane, matching the speed of the car in the right lane, even though they are both driving 10 mph under the posted speed limit.

78. You're not shocked to see people merge onto a highway and immediately go directly to the left lane, and then go either AT or below the posted speed limit.

79. Everyone you see on the road doesn't use a turn signal

80. Turning left onto another road into the left lane, and then signalling and turning into the right line, as is proscribed in driving manuals, is unusual, if not unheard of. Turning into the farthest lane is easier when you are on a cell phone, even though it is illegal.

81. When driving in DC, you actually expect and compensate for the car in front of you randomly coming to a complete stop for no reason. And you're not shocked when they turn off onto a one way street in the wrong direction across 4 lanes of traffic.

haha god these are all so true...I'm in High School and I can relate to every single one of those. Especialy the ones on the schools and how we are under no conditions actually part of the rest of Virginia. I'm a northerner...DAMNIT!

94. Your dining choices consist of "Applebee's," "TGI Fridays" and "Bennigans."
95. Being an asshole to others is a point of pride.
96. Parents sue schools for giving their kids a "B" but the kids are free to build pipe bombs in the garage.
97. You either bought your house in 1969 or you are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy trying to make your mortgage payment.
98. Your name is Juan, Sanjay or Chet.

Firrat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 90. hooka bars are one of the only places to hang
> out @ 4am in the morning after getting piss
> drunk....
>
> 93. When you see people running at 4am in the
> morning.....

99. They just tore down that old house across the street and put up 10 McMansions in its place.

100. The cops run in front of moving vehicles to try and stop them, and then shoot at said vehicles, killing passengers, all the while saying they were trying to stop the car. Said cop is not prosecuted.

and 101. The SWAT team is brought out to arrest people for running gambling operations. Said SWAT team shoots suspect so that they will not have to bother handcuffing the suspect.

"77. You've sat behind someone who believes it is their god-given duty to drive in the left lane, matching the speed of the car in the right lane, even though they are both driving 10 mph under the posted speed limit."

105. So in an attempt to deal with #77, you drop back a bit until the left lane dick slows down a bit, opening a gap, through which you accelerate at wide-open-throttle passing the left lane dick on the right, until you are now in front of the left-lane-dick at 20MPH over the speed limit who is now riding your ass because they speed up to try to keep you from passing. So you hit your brakes hard and slow down to 10MPH over the speed limit and the left lane dick dives into the right lane where they should have been all along.

106. The left lane dick is invariably driving a Toyota, usually a Camry.

107. The left lane dick's camry, unacustomed to driving the speed limit, breaks down, and if you are lucky, moves to the shoulder. However, the rest of the left lane dicks feel that it is there god-given duty to slow to a 15 mph crawl to observe a fellow LLD changing a tire and calling the police., thus backing up the highway for 10 miles.

118. A car speeds amazingly fast past you, intentionally swerves toward your vehicle, cuts you off and gives you the middle finger cause you weren't going 20mph over the speed limit, then the nearest cop pulls YOU over for flashing your high beams at him and gives YOU the aggressive driving ticket.

119. Your neighbor knocks on your door and asks you if you've seen their lost horse.
120. Every other car has a carmax sticker on it
121. Every other car has an OBX sticker on it
122. You know at least one person that lives in South Riding
123. You drive 10 mi outside your city and all of a sudden you're surrounded by rednecks
124. You buy a 1M+ homes in fucking Purceville, VA
125. You sell your house because you can't afford the property tax
126. You go to any other city and are amazed you have to pay to enter a museum
127. You have, on many occasions, almost gotten killed in a car accident while trying to navigate one of the circles in DC
128. You're trying to learn spanish so you can hire cheap labor at 7-11
129. You spend the entire weekend driving your kids around to their activities
130. You have, at one time, wondered what people are doing to afford these huge McMansions.

132. You take the "To Richmond" exit to 495 to get somewhere and, on the return trip, you take the "To Richmond" exit to 495 to get home.
133. You've lived here all your life and don't know what direction the inner loop or outer loop is.
134. You've gotten lost in DC in the worse part of town because all the fucking one way signs point there.
135. You know that the "exorcist stairs" leads to a gas station

136. You go house hunting in places like Columbus, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati and don't blink an eye when the real estate agent seems embarrassed to tell you that the brand new, 3500+ square foot executive house with 5 bedrooms and 3 1/2 baths is *gasp* $389K.

You are surprised when you go out of town and see White people working fast food jobs

Haha, good one. Every time I visit family in PA, stuff like that strikes me as being strange. I recently went to a dry cleaner in my old hometown up there, and everyone working in there was a white male. Gauranteed you'll never see something like that around here.

139. You are the only white person in the K-Mart.
140. You know that INOVA and NOVA are not the same thing.
141. You know that Kaiser Permanente was not the villian played by Kevin Spacey in "The Usual Suspects.
142. You have a six-figure car that will go 0 to 60 in 4.9 seconds and you've never had it past 40 MPH.

I once got offered a job in new york city making 50k a year, back when I was making 24 a year (1998ish). I thought I had hit the jackpot, until I (luckily) got curious about rent and cost of day-to-day living and realized it was insane and 50k would not cover living within the city... I guess it's getting to be the same way around here. I'd be a pauper right now if I wasn't in a two-income household.

RESton Peace Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> lol
>
> I once got offered a job in new york city making
> 50k a year, back when I was making 24 a year
> (1998ish). I thought I had hit the jackpot, until
> I (luckily) got curious about rent and cost of
> day-to-day living and realized it was insane and
> 50k would not cover living within the city... I
> guess it's getting to be the same way around here.
> I'd be a pauper right now if I wasn't in a
> two-income household.

Yeah, 50k a year is nothing if you plan on living in the city. I'm from NY myself, grew up about 30min north of the Bronx. 50k a year up around my hometown would be decent, but still nothing great.

When I got the offer to come down here (60k a year), I thought I hit the jackpot as well. I admit I probably didn't do as much homework about the area as I should have, but oh well. Being in a long-distance relationship for the time being doesn't help much either.

>
> Yeah, 50k a year is nothing if you plan on living
> in the city. I'm from NY myself, grew up about
> 30min north of the Bronx. 50k a year up around my
> hometown would be decent, but still nothing
> great.
>
> When I got the offer to come down here (60k a
> year), I thought I hit the jackpot as well. I
> admit I probably didn't do as much homework about
> the area as I should have, but oh well. Being in a
> long-distance relationship for the time being
> doesn't help much either.

You need at least six figures to have a comparable standard of living here compared to other parts of the country. I don't know how people making $20K to $40K in this area make it.

139. Your neighbors have corn growing in the backyard
140. You've seen chickens run across your neighbors lawn, and then two weeks later, suddenly are gone.
141. You have on several occasions come home from work to see any of your neighbors have a mariachi band outside of their house.
142. You can't stand your neighbors.

FCPS is responsible for getting 110,000 kids home safely, so yeah, high winds can cause early releases. Downed trees in Clifton/Fairfax Station alone can cause havoc with the buses. And the threat to students walking from bus stops from falling limbs/power lines is real.

You people laughing would be the first to be calling lawyers if your kid gets hurt while in FCPS custody.

The administrators that make the closing/early release decisions are truly damned if they do, damned if they don't. They have a couple hundred thousand monday morning quarterbacks.

And nobody can forget the winter morning a few years ago...they opened the schools when they shouldn't have...and wrecked 40 buses in less than an hour.

the day when all the buses crashed was in 2005. february i think, not 100% on that.

The only reason i was concerned about the wind day was becuase it seems to me that a school bus is a relativly large vehicle with a lot of surface area and high center of grav. I can see putting the students from trailers and etc, inside, that is smart. However sending students home early, in the wind, i dont know the reasoning behind that but the bus or walking home , to me, doesnt seem the smarted place to be in a wind storm.

BTW, the windstorm was either april 16 or 17. i remember there were about 2000 reporters swarming Cville HS b/c it had just been announced Cho sung-asian was from centreville, but not westfield HS. and the kids were coming out early and the reporters were there filming it all, calling the school and etc.

171. When you spend 1hr in line at the 7-11 because the all of the illegal hispanics pilled in at once,to get coffee and hotdogs, and you spend the next 15 minutes screaming MARLBORO!! to the brown person wearing a Burka behind the counter.

175. You get harassed by the cops for your car being too loud
176. The pot heads always manage to skip class successfully
177. you pay people to change your oil
178. you pay people to cut your grass
179. your highschool is underfunded, but test scores are high
180. you call everyone nigga

final word u r sooo right. i lived in l.a. for 2 decades and the girls here in nova are a thousand times hotter than anything in that toilet. just laugh at david allen coe he is obviously describing his mother, not you.

final word u r sooo right. i lived in l.a. for 2 decades and the girls here in nova are a thousand times hotter than anything in that toilet. just laugh at david allen coe he is obviously describing his mother, not you.

I like 55. I'm 5-10 minutes from both Chantilly HS and Centreville HS but my kids go to Fairfax HS.

191. Fairfax county has bridges built in the 30's with tens of thousands of cars crossing them each day while other parts of Virginia have brand new roads to nowhere because we pay most of the states taxes but the legislature gives us back pennies on the dollar.

PWC builds houses so close together that you could have a community dinner without leaving your house.

You can not leave your neighborhood in any direction without passing a shopping center containing a haircuttery, grocery store,nail salon, ABC store and fast foodjoint. Seriously-do they have a template for these things-they all look alike.

There are lines of little girls who want to be girl scouts and NO PARENTS want to become leaders. So the parents stand around and complain because they can't be bothered to do the work to give their girls the experience they want them to have.

The police have raided a house on your street at least 3 times.

Someone in your apartment complex used an illegal grill and set the roof on fire.

You live in an apartment complex with a wierdo who has taken their family memebers hostage and you can't go home that night. And you're not worried because you already have a plan and an alternate place to stay. And a packed bag in the car-complete with toothbrush and snacks.

You do not make eye contact with anyone-ever.

Should you need an estimate for home repair and you have to go with the guy who shows up. The other four just never show up.

You keep a bag of stuff to do in the car for the 9 hour emergency room wait. Unless you're justthisclose to dead-they just don't have time to see you.

You know where there is a government safehouse in your neighborhood.

No one talks about the interesting crap they see at various public places-because they don't want to get taken out for witnessing a drop or an actual crime.

You are angry with shows like NCIS because their version of here is soooooooooo way better than here.

One of your classmates dings up her car on the way to school and her daddy has a new one delivered to the school parking lot-before lunch.

You get all the dirt on the president cuz your classmates parents are secret service agents.

When you leave town and people stop to let you cross the street and you do not know what to do. Too used to people trying to run you over.

The kids can't ever go outside because PWC has sprayed for mosquitos- and that stuff makes your kids break out in rashes and develop asthma.